Well hello again to you, the audience of my pointless travels. But actually, I've become much more confident in my own abilities to intermingle with the locals after visiting Rome. So, as per a faire I had established previously, I quote quotes transcripted from my little book:

Half of the people in Rome speak english because half of them are tourists. The numbers are ridiculous - you can't walk a block in this city without bumping into some young girl in her late teens, freshly graduated, with a backpack half her size strapped behind her, and possibly four or five of her closest friends in trail. And if you don't run into one of those, some dorky highschool graduate guys with even bigger backpacks. Or the worst, the old couples with just a camera slung around their necks standing at a major intersection staring at a tourist map, both of them wearing khaki shorts and hawaiian t-shirts. I've always been discreet about peeking into my guidebooks when I'm on the streets of a city, but all of the tourists here have a Let's Go book glued to their hand, or in the case of the old couple, one of the higher end ones that doesn't detail how to do Rome cheaply. Not like Rome's cheap anyway - I spent way too much money because all of the cheaper accomodations were booked solid by said backpacking teenagers.

Italy's big cities are filthy, rife with pickpockets, and have some genuinely gritty areas - something I definitely did NOT see the last time I was in Europe, up in Austria and Germany. The suburbs of Napoli can best be described as just above slum-like, with as much grafiiti as Los Angeles and tonnes of very drab looking buildings which don't even attempt to maintain traditions of Italian architecture. Napoli's main street along the docks, in fact, looked like something I would expect to see in Beirut, not the heart of tourist infested Italy. The Italians, though, are for the most part good people - but because of the high number of stupid tourists it's impossible not to get ripped off, or even find a fair price for anything with five blocks of any tourist attraction. Cans of coke routinely cost $3 and 500ml Fanta's cost $5 at all of the snack stands, although eventually I found a supermarket where I could get a 1.5l bottle of Fanta for $2.50 - which shows you how inflated the prices are. But tourists are willing to pay for them, and because of this it gets very difficult to get a reasonably priced meal of any kind without going very far out of your way. It can also be very trying on your patience when it's 35 Celcius out and you really want a drink.





I believe the real charm of the country is in its villages and small islands, where you could really interact with the locals. Of course, you need to know the language to do this, and a car would be good too. However, the sites of Rome and around Napoli are amazing, but the real Italy could be missed entirely because of all the tourists. In Rome, half of the people are tourists, another quarter are illegal african immigrants trying to sell you the most useless of trinkets, and then there's a small Italian population that is making a killing from all of the tourists who are willing to pay just about anything for anything because they're so disoriented, not being in Houston or Raleigh anymore(just imagine being in the Pantheon like I was, when behind you in the thickest of Texan accents you hear "I can't believe they did awll of this, withawt any mawdurn angineerin'!"). Also, the lineup to get into the Vatican Museum is about a block long all day, on a weekday, in May - could you imagine the summer, when things really pick up? Or worse, the summer of 2000, when the Pope has requested that all catholics come to Rome? I shudder. Even in late may, when it's not even peak season, there's way too many tourists. It's like a big theme park for geriatrics and teenagers.

So I proved it once again - Europe's too damn expensive for a cheap guy like me. I was so angry after spending $3 on a large coke and $5 on a sandwich which consisted of one slice of meat and one slice of mozzarella between a bun, that I've vowed not to return until I make more money. Next time, I'm going someplace where I can live like a king on my budget, where I can get a 15-course meal for $10 and sleep for $4 a night in a double room. Enough of these $3 cans of coke! And sadly, it will probably never change, since as I said - people will pay those prices for them.

I wonder, though, do any of those teenagers realize how ridiculous and vulnerable they look with a 75-pound pack on their back, a 30-pound pack strapped to the front of their chest, and a Let's Go Europe book in their left hand, going "Excuse me, do you speak english?" to every passer-by? Do they feel the least bit threatened by the fact that they look exactly as they are, completely and utterly out of their element? Luckily the Italians are good people for the most part, and are willing to help these poor kids out.

But Italy is definitely not the safest place for these kids in Europe... when I arrived in Napoli's train station at 9:30pm, and wandered onto the street, I felt threatened - it is unbelievably seedy down there at night. The sidewalks are lined with Africans selling porn videos, all of the gutters are lined with garbage just like New York. Walking along a deserted street with dumpsters overflowing with garbage on the corners, heading to a pensione, there was an African man walking behind me about 20 feet, and I was looking for a well-lit entrance I could duck into, just in case he was planning on trying to get some money from me. These are things I did in New York, and would have never expected to practice in the charming, romantic, wonderfully beautiful cities of western Europe. Nothing happened, of course, but I would have never expected to ever feel threatened like that in such a tourist bastion like Italy.

-May 1999





I have to say, though, that the Vatican City is one fine little country. but those Swiss guards must feel really stupid in those purple and orange jester outfits, surrounded by tourists laughing at them and taking pictures........



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